Archive for November, 2008

Hydrangea Myth

November 30, 2008 at 11:46 am · Filed under Home Sweet Home

I have to say that this hydrangea is a dark horse in my potted garden this year. It came a long way right from early of 2008 when I got some flower cuttings from my one of my colleagues after I passed the driving test.

To be honest, I had never expected to turn those decorative flowers in a glass vase into any real plant, even when I was trying to propagating them in pots this January. However, after about 6-7 months time, in this winter, I found there was one cutting survived and started to come with two new shoots. The old cutting became very woody and finally died, but it gave new life to a wonderful new plant, a real one, and my very own potted hydrangea, not bought from nursery or given as a gift as a mature plant, but from my own pot through my hands from a thin stem with only a couple of leaves.

Anyhow I couldn’t believe it’s going to flower now. So by the time when it forms all these buds, I forgot all my low standard expectation and became very greedy. Yes, I want it to fully turn to a big flower ball, and I want it to be pretty. But I am so sick worried about it at the moment, as these buds look so green that I couldn’t help thinking: “Oh my god, what if the flowers are green?? I don’t want green flowers, as that would be very boring. Just give me any flower colours, pink, red, purple, blue, even creamy…….” Seriously I just couldn’t accept green :-)

Also the slow developing speed of these flower buds worry me as well. It’s already been almost two weeks, they still look like babies. It looks like they are going to nowhere to a flower ball, and no sign of a fancy colour had ever showed up. Is this normal?? Is this okay? Can somebody say something about it? How much longer would it take to get to “that fully mature stage”?

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Puff Pastry Tarts

November 28, 2008 at 7:42 pm · Filed under Food & Cusine

I don’t want to bore you with my puff pastry obsessions anymore, but as I said before, try this magical pastry thing at least once in your life, forget about all the recipes that you could find or somehow linked with the puff pastry use, and be really creative with your imagination.

I always think that puff pastry is one of the best western style baking ingredients. You are about to see the most wonderful changes in your oven and the most rewarding yet easiest cooking experience just makes you want to do this more and more.

I know these tarts are not even close to professional puff pastry cooks’ works, but they reflect the way how a housewife used up her leftovers (two pieces of left over harsh brown) in the fridge and how to turn repetitive kitchen boredom to something different and fresh.

That’s how we make the life keep going everyday, without falling into endless resentment, apathy or complaints.

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Chilli Diary Part 6: The Troop

November 22, 2008 at 9:49 pm · Filed under Home Sweet Home

Yes, the transplantation had happened today and now I have 5 separate square pots (about 16cm wide) on my north facing window sill. Now I have a troop.

Most of plants have already got 3-4 pairs leaves, but they look so tiny in their new big “home”. I couldn’t help imagining how one day they are going to turn to…..thriving leaves, then flowers first, then some purple, red, green then hot red fruits…then it would be the time for me to pick and use them for cooking……

Hi silly you, stop daydreaming!!!

Yes, I think I am quite silly, or you can say I do love my plant. Believe it or not, I spent quite some time everyday standing in front of them checking, thinking and imagining…..I even sometimes sang to them, all happy songs :-)

Anyway, I sprinkled a bit slow released fertilizer in the pot and gave them a good watering. Hope they will settle well soon in the new pot.

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Goulburn Orphanages

November 21, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under Work & Social Issues

On the way back to work, the boss generously decided to stop at Goulburn for a break,as I said that I’ve never been there, which is part of region that our program covers. I guess the reason she was happy to go there was, she actually has her little “hidden agenda” for herself. She loves those abandoned orphanages and mentioned them many times in front of us about re-using them for other functions one day if she can afford to buy them herself.Mind you we are talking about $1-1.5 Millions for each of buildings. Apparently she said they are far out of her leagues, but it did get her mind all working.

If I didn’t or couldn’t bother thinking about her little “fantasy” too much, I have to say that I really started to get the point when we were driving through the town, seeing all those gorgeous old buildings and finally stopped in front of one of the girl’s orphanages.

My God! I was speechless. A gorgeous building with broken windows, grass growing wildly everywhere in the front yard and a big white whatever lady sculptures attached on outside of the front wall of the building, neglected, abandoned and lonely. I can’t help imagining when it was the time when there were orphans living in this place, how the garden would have been look like, and the sounds that were made by girls and harsh teachers and how children were running around in this place…..pretty much a scene for Charlotte Bronte’s book Jane Eyre.

It actually made me feel quite sick when thinking of these. I mean the possible history of an old building which had been closed down 30 or 40 years ago makes you sometimes feel quite frightened. A building like this can be very scary and full of bitter stories. We all know there is an obvious history of orphans in institution care being abused and mistreated in many countries, even in those church funded facilities. Who wants to reflect that? To those orphans who had gone through those miserable things, here would be certainly a heart-breaking place to remember and would be very hard to be removed from their lifetime memories. The place they used to call it a home….but not so much a good home, who wants to be there again?

Re-use? Maybe…lots of potentials, if you look at everything in this world from an economic perspective of view, there are. But history? It might fade but you can never make it disappear.

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Natural Therapy and Homeopathy

November 20, 2008 at 10:50 pm · Filed under Health & Fitness

There were two workshops that I attended in this conference really drew my attention. I found them very inspiring (though I do think they are not so much related to my work) and for the perspective of looking at things from different angles, they are eye widen experience and certainly made you realise what “other options” mean.

The guy who talked about Natural Therapy and ADHD was very radical. He kept callings doctors “criminals” in his speech. I am sure there are people who would feel very uncomfortable in the room, but part of what he said was not wrong. There have been too much drug abuse issues in the territory of medical world . Doctor put you on some tablets that look like helping but is actually working as turning off the fire alarm sound instead of dealing with fire. When the symptoms are gone, it does not necessarily mean the illness’s gone as well, does it?

For example, some medication for high blood pressure actually makes your heart work weaker so the pumping becomes weak too, so to make the blood pressure lower? It doesn’t sound like a healthy way. I suppose apart from his manner, I like the idea to look at other avenues to see if there is a more natural way to treat people’s suffering. I really don’t think changing diet can solve anything, but there are too many diseases can be prevented by a healthy lifestyle.

The homeopathy one was even more holistic. I was kind of listening with my mouth half open all the time.Am I a person who easily buys other people’s belief? No. Am I a person who likes wild ideas all the time? No. But Homeopathy sounds really an interesting field that broadened my mind and got me think a lot of possibilities. Hayfever? Chronic headache? Stress? Certain behaviour problems of children? Epilepsy? Restlessness? Even for pets?

I was fascinated with the idea of dilution and percussion, which involved not just chemical process but a more energy-levelled working process. When the speaker mentioned about the “similar” principle, it made me remember our old Chinese treatment “yi du gong du” (use toxic ingredient to treat toxin).

If you are interested to know more about Homeopathy or want to find an accredited Homeopathy practitioner, have a look at this website. I think up to some stage, I might want to try it to see how I go.

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Food, Friends, etc…

November 19, 2008 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Out & About

Another great thing about going to Sydney is the way how I make out my time. Look, I don’t think I would ever have a chance to get bored or feel lonely over there. Actually I was overwhelmed by my busy schedule catching up with my friends in Sydney at the moment.

Firstly, I was so glad to see my seven and half months pregnant girlfriend Jessy and her husband Junie. They treated me in a Chinese Restaurant at Kingston last night with some yummy roasted duck , my favourite Tofu stew, and vegetarian chicken rolls. Needless to say how much I enjoyed them and loved them, however, I have to mention Junie’s black Mercedes Benz, which is lovable as well :-)

I was even busier today. As the conference gives us a half day off, we finished up by 1pm today. So I went to the City to meet Jessy again at where she works. We just strolled along on the streets, got into market, visited from one shop to another, then spent hours at Gloria & Jeans chatting, having coffee and watching out through windows. I just couldn’t believe there were so many young Chinese faces walking pass by.

Then I met Sally at Central Station. We went to a Japanese restaurant, called 武藏, and had a really big nice meal. I always loved raw salmon and wasabi. We also tried a big plate of fish sushi (eel sushi?) and boulee? I have to say I really had fallen in love with Japanese food in the past two days. I used to quite reject them, but now I just love to eat fish whenever it’s possible and love the way Japanese don’t use oil that much and always uses fresh ingredients and minimum process. Also, I think I am utilising the Japanese restaurant downstairs of the Coogee Sands hotel as well.

After the meal, we went to Sally’s new house that’s located in Hornsby, a town I have never been before. It’s a lovely apartment, spacious and well presented. I can imagine in the morning how the sunshine would fill the whole room and make it warm and pleasant. I guess in Sydney, it’s quite a good deal to get a place like this.

I got back the hotel at about 10:15pm, full, tired and excited. The pub next to the hotel was still filled with people drinking, I really don’t know where they get all the energy from. Tomorrow? Jessy is coming to see me. I think I am actually leaving aside my two bosses completely. I wondered if they had a good night as I did :-)

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